


Touching

by holdouttrout



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-07
Updated: 2007-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 21:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdouttrout/pseuds/holdouttrout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They both calculated their touches using an unspoken formula they knew instinctively.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touching

Each brush of the fingers, each hand placed on a shoulder, each playful shove--they were all thought out well in advance. Duration, kind, location, witnesses, mood--they both calculated their touches using an unspoken formula they knew instinctively.   
  
Sam remembered the last uncalculated touch (though it came after the first calculated one). It had been when she'd pulled Jack out of the cryogenic mist. Her relief at finding him was so strong, and he looked so cold--  
  
Later, she wondered if she should have known. She hadn't thought about their hug at the time, just clung to him as her fear left her in a rush of warmth she was sure he could feel.  
  
She hadn't meant to love him. Not like that, anyway. She struggled against it until his eyes told her everything she never wanted to know from behind a force field.   
  
After that, the calculations of touch got more complicated until, ironically, they got simpler once Everyone Knew.  
  
Touch became too dangerous in public, because eyes were watching. Touch had already been too dangerous in private, where fingers could grasp instead of slide, heads could turn, leading lips to ruin.  
  
They stopped touching at all, for a while, and became used to distance.  
  
Slowly the moments of contact started to seep back in. Time was added to the equation, making it possible to reach out every once in a while.  
  
And maybe, much later, they would find a balance. Maybe their numbers would match, settle, stabilize. Maybe they would no longer think about the seconds, or the people around them, or how the other might take it.  
  
Or maybe they would overbalance, caught in a moment, see some variable they'd missed and scrap the whole thing, letting the pieces of the formula shatter and slide across their skin as they clung to each other. Maybe they would feel as if instead of fighting to push away, they'd been fighting to keep ahold of something this whole time


End file.
